Valentina Vitali
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719099656
- eISBN:
- 9781526109774
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719099656.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
While post-war popular cinema has traditionally been excluded from accounts of national cinemas, the last fifteen years have seen the academy’s gradual rediscovery of cult and, more, generally, ...
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While post-war popular cinema has traditionally been excluded from accounts of national cinemas, the last fifteen years have seen the academy’s gradual rediscovery of cult and, more, generally, popular films. Why, many years after their release, do we now deem these films worthy of study? The book situates ‘low’ film genres in their economic and culturally specific contexts (a period of unstable ‘economic miracles’ in different countries and regions) and explores the interconnections between those contexts, the immediate industrial-financial interests sustaining the films, and the films’ aesthetics. It argues that the visibility (or not) of popular genres in a nation’s account of its cinema is an indirect but demonstrable effect of the centrality (or not) of a particular kind of capital in that country’s economy. Through in-depth examination of what may at first appear as different cycles in film production and history – the Italian giallo, the Mexican horror film and Hindi horror cinema – Capital and popular cinema lays the foundations of a comparative approach to film; one capable of accounting for the whole of a national film industry’s production (‘popular’ and ‘canonic’) and applicable to the study of film genres globally.Less
While post-war popular cinema has traditionally been excluded from accounts of national cinemas, the last fifteen years have seen the academy’s gradual rediscovery of cult and, more, generally, popular films. Why, many years after their release, do we now deem these films worthy of study? The book situates ‘low’ film genres in their economic and culturally specific contexts (a period of unstable ‘economic miracles’ in different countries and regions) and explores the interconnections between those contexts, the immediate industrial-financial interests sustaining the films, and the films’ aesthetics. It argues that the visibility (or not) of popular genres in a nation’s account of its cinema is an indirect but demonstrable effect of the centrality (or not) of a particular kind of capital in that country’s economy. Through in-depth examination of what may at first appear as different cycles in film production and history – the Italian giallo, the Mexican horror film and Hindi horror cinema – Capital and popular cinema lays the foundations of a comparative approach to film; one capable of accounting for the whole of a national film industry’s production (‘popular’ and ‘canonic’) and applicable to the study of film genres globally.
Roberto Curti
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325932
- eISBN:
- 9781800342538
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325932.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (1964) is a legendary title, and is commonly considered as the archetypal giallo. A murder mystery about a faceless and menacing killer stalking the premises of a ...
More
Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (1964) is a legendary title, and is commonly considered as the archetypal giallo. A murder mystery about a faceless and menacing killer stalking the premises of a luxurious fashion house in Rome, Blood and Black Lace set the rules for the genre: a masked, black-gloved killer, an emphasis on graphic violence, elaborate and suspenseful murder sequences. But Blood and Black Lace is first and foremost an exquisitely stylish film, full of gorgeous color schemes, elegant camerawork, and surrealistic imagery, testimony of Bava's mastery and his status as an innovator within popular cinema. This book recollects Blood and Black Lace's production history, putting it within the context of the Italian film industry of the period and includes plenty of previously unheard-of data. It analyzes the film's main narrative and stylistic aspects, including the groundbreaking prominence of violence and sadism and its use of color and lighting, as well as Bava's irreverent approach to genre filmmaking and clever handling of the audience's expectations by way of irony and pitch-black humor. The book also analyzes Blood and Black Lace's place within Bava's oeuvre, its historical impact on the giallo genre, and its influential status on future filmmakers.Less
Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (1964) is a legendary title, and is commonly considered as the archetypal giallo. A murder mystery about a faceless and menacing killer stalking the premises of a luxurious fashion house in Rome, Blood and Black Lace set the rules for the genre: a masked, black-gloved killer, an emphasis on graphic violence, elaborate and suspenseful murder sequences. But Blood and Black Lace is first and foremost an exquisitely stylish film, full of gorgeous color schemes, elegant camerawork, and surrealistic imagery, testimony of Bava's mastery and his status as an innovator within popular cinema. This book recollects Blood and Black Lace's production history, putting it within the context of the Italian film industry of the period and includes plenty of previously unheard-of data. It analyzes the film's main narrative and stylistic aspects, including the groundbreaking prominence of violence and sadism and its use of color and lighting, as well as Bava's irreverent approach to genre filmmaking and clever handling of the audience's expectations by way of irony and pitch-black humor. The book also analyzes Blood and Black Lace's place within Bava's oeuvre, its historical impact on the giallo genre, and its influential status on future filmmakers.
Austin Fisher
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474411721
- eISBN:
- 9781474464727
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411721.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Blood in the Streets investigates the various ways in which 1970s Italian crime films were embedded in their immediate cultural and political contexts. The book analyses the emergence, proliferation ...
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Blood in the Streets investigates the various ways in which 1970s Italian crime films were embedded in their immediate cultural and political contexts. The book analyses the emergence, proliferation and distribution of a range of popular film cycles (or filoni) - from conspiracy thrillers and vigilante films, to mafia and serial killer narratives - and examines what these reveal about their time and place. The engagement in these films with both the contemporary political turmoil of 1970s Italy and the traumas of the nation's recent past offer fascinating insights into wider anxieties of this decade around the Second World War and its on-going political aftermath. Ultimately, these cycles' industrial conditions of rapid production schedules and concentrated release patterns are seen to be the key to understanding their significance, since these conditions allowed for swift responsiveness to political events, cinematic trends and attendant economic opportunities, while demanding the simplified construction of believable contemporary backdrops. The book thus reveals a repetitive accumulation of assumptions around historically constituted corruption, the impact of rapid socio-economic change and the lingering vestiges of wartime conflict.Less
Blood in the Streets investigates the various ways in which 1970s Italian crime films were embedded in their immediate cultural and political contexts. The book analyses the emergence, proliferation and distribution of a range of popular film cycles (or filoni) - from conspiracy thrillers and vigilante films, to mafia and serial killer narratives - and examines what these reveal about their time and place. The engagement in these films with both the contemporary political turmoil of 1970s Italy and the traumas of the nation's recent past offer fascinating insights into wider anxieties of this decade around the Second World War and its on-going political aftermath. Ultimately, these cycles' industrial conditions of rapid production schedules and concentrated release patterns are seen to be the key to understanding their significance, since these conditions allowed for swift responsiveness to political events, cinematic trends and attendant economic opportunities, while demanding the simplified construction of believable contemporary backdrops. The book thus reveals a repetitive accumulation of assumptions around historically constituted corruption, the impact of rapid socio-economic change and the lingering vestiges of wartime conflict.
Roberto Curti and Roberto Curti
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325932
- eISBN:
- 9781800342538
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325932.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores the significance of German participation in the film Blood and Black Lace. It discusses how Italy had signed a co-production agreement with West Germany in 1962 that started the ...
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This chapter explores the significance of German participation in the film Blood and Black Lace. It discusses how Italy had signed a co-production agreement with West Germany in 1962 that started the passage from period Gothic to a thriller set in the present day. It also explains the Italian film makers' intention of joining the successful thread of the German so-called “krimis,” the murder mysteries inspired by the works of Edgar Wallace and produced by Preben Philipsen's Rialto film company in 1959. The chapter focuses on the distinct and well-defined tradition of mystery in Italy. It describes the genre known as “giallo,” which had been very popular since 1929 when the Italian publishing house, Mondadori launched a new editorial series called the Yellow Books (I Libri Gialli).Less
This chapter explores the significance of German participation in the film Blood and Black Lace. It discusses how Italy had signed a co-production agreement with West Germany in 1962 that started the passage from period Gothic to a thriller set in the present day. It also explains the Italian film makers' intention of joining the successful thread of the German so-called “krimis,” the murder mysteries inspired by the works of Edgar Wallace and produced by Preben Philipsen's Rialto film company in 1959. The chapter focuses on the distinct and well-defined tradition of mystery in Italy. It describes the genre known as “giallo,” which had been very popular since 1929 when the Italian publishing house, Mondadori launched a new editorial series called the Yellow Books (I Libri Gialli).
Peter Hutchings
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780748693528
- eISBN:
- 9781474421997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693528.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In 2007 the writer/critic Tim Lucas published Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. This massive tome, glossily produced, extensively illustrated, and over 1,100 pages long, has since been ...
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In 2007 the writer/critic Tim Lucas published Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. This massive tome, glossily produced, extensively illustrated, and over 1,100 pages long, has since been described, with some justification, as ‘one of the most impressive books ever to have been written about any director’ (Williams, 2011: 162). The end result of over thirty years’ research, Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark has served to underline, reinforce and possibly clinch once and for all Mario Bava’s status as a major figure not merely in Italian horror cinema but in world horror as well. However, such status has been bestowed entirely retrospectively, for during his directorial career – which ran from 1960 through to the mid-1970s – Bava, while a respected figure in the Italian film industry, received little critical attention and was not generally known to the film-going public, either in his native Italy or elsewhere.Less
In 2007 the writer/critic Tim Lucas published Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. This massive tome, glossily produced, extensively illustrated, and over 1,100 pages long, has since been described, with some justification, as ‘one of the most impressive books ever to have been written about any director’ (Williams, 2011: 162). The end result of over thirty years’ research, Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark has served to underline, reinforce and possibly clinch once and for all Mario Bava’s status as a major figure not merely in Italian horror cinema but in world horror as well. However, such status has been bestowed entirely retrospectively, for during his directorial career – which ran from 1960 through to the mid-1970s – Bava, while a respected figure in the Italian film industry, received little critical attention and was not generally known to the film-going public, either in his native Italy or elsewhere.
Adam Lowenstein
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780748693528
- eISBN:
- 9781474421997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693528.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
How Italian is the American slasher film? How American is the Italian giallo film?
I begin with these questions not because they have never been asked, but because the answers that are usually ...
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How Italian is the American slasher film? How American is the Italian giallo film?
I begin with these questions not because they have never been asked, but because the answers that are usually offered have not encouraged us to take the relationship between these two important horror film sub-genres as seriously as we should. By examining a seminal Italian giallo, Mario Bava’s Ecologia del delitto/The Ecology of Murder (1971, also known as Antefatto, Reazione a catena, A Bay of Blood, Carnage, Last House – Part II and Twitch of the Death Nerve) alongside a phenomenally popular American slasher film that bears an uncanny resemblance to it, Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980), I will argue that we have more to learn about these well-known sub-genres than we might have imagined. More specifically, the centrality of natural landscape to both films suggests that the giallo and the slasher film can cross-pollinate to enable what I will call a ‘subtractive spectatorship’ that challenges some of our conventional assumptions about what watching graphic horror is all about.Less
How Italian is the American slasher film? How American is the Italian giallo film?
I begin with these questions not because they have never been asked, but because the answers that are usually offered have not encouraged us to take the relationship between these two important horror film sub-genres as seriously as we should. By examining a seminal Italian giallo, Mario Bava’s Ecologia del delitto/The Ecology of Murder (1971, also known as Antefatto, Reazione a catena, A Bay of Blood, Carnage, Last House – Part II and Twitch of the Death Nerve) alongside a phenomenally popular American slasher film that bears an uncanny resemblance to it, Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980), I will argue that we have more to learn about these well-known sub-genres than we might have imagined. More specifically, the centrality of natural landscape to both films suggests that the giallo and the slasher film can cross-pollinate to enable what I will call a ‘subtractive spectatorship’ that challenges some of our conventional assumptions about what watching graphic horror is all about.
Leon Hunt
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780748693528
- eISBN:
- 9781474421997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693528.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Any attempt to nominate this or that film as the ‘first’ giallo has to negotiate the question of which version of this notoriously slippery term is being used – the giallo in its more inclusive ...
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Any attempt to nominate this or that film as the ‘first’ giallo has to negotiate the question of which version of this notoriously slippery term is being used – the giallo in its more inclusive Italian sense, ‘a metonym for the entire mystery genre’ (Koven, 2006: 2), or as a more particular B-movie filone that surfaced intermittently in the 1960s, blossomed more fully in the early to mid-1970s and has continued to appear sporadically, particularly in the films of Dario Argento.1 Either way, Mario Bava’s La ragazza che sapeva troppo/The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Italy, 1962; refashioned as The Evil Eye, 1964) and particularly Sei donne per l’assassino/Blood and Black Lace (a co-production involving Italy/West Germany/France, 1964) are often accorded seminal status in teleological accounts of the giallo as a cinematic cycle. Both have at various times had the distinction of being identified as the first ‘proper’ giallo; the former with its tourist-eyewitness heroine and the latter with its bodycount narrative, eroticised violence and overheated visual stylisation.Less
Any attempt to nominate this or that film as the ‘first’ giallo has to negotiate the question of which version of this notoriously slippery term is being used – the giallo in its more inclusive Italian sense, ‘a metonym for the entire mystery genre’ (Koven, 2006: 2), or as a more particular B-movie filone that surfaced intermittently in the 1960s, blossomed more fully in the early to mid-1970s and has continued to appear sporadically, particularly in the films of Dario Argento.1 Either way, Mario Bava’s La ragazza che sapeva troppo/The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Italy, 1962; refashioned as The Evil Eye, 1964) and particularly Sei donne per l’assassino/Blood and Black Lace (a co-production involving Italy/West Germany/France, 1964) are often accorded seminal status in teleological accounts of the giallo as a cinematic cycle. Both have at various times had the distinction of being identified as the first ‘proper’ giallo; the former with its tourist-eyewitness heroine and the latter with its bodycount narrative, eroticised violence and overheated visual stylisation.
Austin Fisher
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780748693528
- eISBN:
- 9781474421997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693528.003.0011
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter aims to locate a sub-set of what has become known as the ‘giallo’ filone within its historical contexts, and to ask what significance this relationship might hold for the broader study ...
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This chapter aims to locate a sub-set of what has become known as the ‘giallo’ filone within its historical contexts, and to ask what significance this relationship might hold for the broader study of Italy’s cultural history. Such an undertaking immediately poses methodological questions: what are we looking for when we seek to identify ‘history’ in such popular cinema; by what models can we best pursue a ‘historical’ approach to an amorphous, frequently unruly cinematic format like the Italian filone? Certainly, such films can offer insights into how discourses about the past have been represented and consumed within particular registers of historical address.Less
This chapter aims to locate a sub-set of what has become known as the ‘giallo’ filone within its historical contexts, and to ask what significance this relationship might hold for the broader study of Italy’s cultural history. Such an undertaking immediately poses methodological questions: what are we looking for when we seek to identify ‘history’ in such popular cinema; by what models can we best pursue a ‘historical’ approach to an amorphous, frequently unruly cinematic format like the Italian filone? Certainly, such films can offer insights into how discourses about the past have been represented and consumed within particular registers of historical address.
Bruce Isaacs
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- April 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190889951
- eISBN:
- 9780190889999
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190889951.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Alfred Hitchcock’s notion of a “pure cinema” has continued to fascinate and perplex film audiences, critics, and theorists alike. The concept first emerged loosely in the 1920s, as European ...
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Alfred Hitchcock’s notion of a “pure cinema” has continued to fascinate and perplex film audiences, critics, and theorists alike. The concept first emerged loosely in the 1920s, as European avant-garde artists and intellectuals grappled with the essence of the moving image as an aesthetic form. But what, precisely, was pure cinema as an artistic philosophy and style? How did it evolve within Hitchcock’s body of work, and how was a pure cinema artistic style then developed by the filmmakers who came after Hitchcock, such as Dario Argento and Brian De Palma? The Art of Pure Cinema connects film history and philosophies of image and sound to better understand the legacy of this aesthetic tradition.Less
Alfred Hitchcock’s notion of a “pure cinema” has continued to fascinate and perplex film audiences, critics, and theorists alike. The concept first emerged loosely in the 1920s, as European avant-garde artists and intellectuals grappled with the essence of the moving image as an aesthetic form. But what, precisely, was pure cinema as an artistic philosophy and style? How did it evolve within Hitchcock’s body of work, and how was a pure cinema artistic style then developed by the filmmakers who came after Hitchcock, such as Dario Argento and Brian De Palma? The Art of Pure Cinema connects film history and philosophies of image and sound to better understand the legacy of this aesthetic tradition.
Barry Forshaw
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733650
- eISBN:
- 9781800342071
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733650.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the character of Hannibal Lecter. Thomas Harris makes it quickly apparent that Lecter is unlike most other fictional monsters we have encountered: he is well-read, charismatic, ...
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This chapter examines the character of Hannibal Lecter. Thomas Harris makes it quickly apparent that Lecter is unlike most other fictional monsters we have encountered: he is well-read, charismatic, and immensely polite. In fact, politeness is one of the key components of his baleful personality: those he considers ‘impolite’ he kills. His prey are frequently other killers, monsters who, unlike himself, are mere murderers, without his ‘redeeming’ features such as a high IQ, impressive culinary skills, and an expert knowledge of Italian Renaissance art. Indeed, one of Harris's signal achievements is the establishment of the character's unacknowledged mauvais foi — the monumental, smug self-deception he practices to maintain a lofty distance between himself and those he considers to be ordinary killers, or worse, ordinary killers who lack manners. The chapter then looks at Lecter's screen debut in the film Manhunter (1986). It also considers the influence of the Italian genre of the stylish murder thriller, the giallo, on the films made of Harris's work.Less
This chapter examines the character of Hannibal Lecter. Thomas Harris makes it quickly apparent that Lecter is unlike most other fictional monsters we have encountered: he is well-read, charismatic, and immensely polite. In fact, politeness is one of the key components of his baleful personality: those he considers ‘impolite’ he kills. His prey are frequently other killers, monsters who, unlike himself, are mere murderers, without his ‘redeeming’ features such as a high IQ, impressive culinary skills, and an expert knowledge of Italian Renaissance art. Indeed, one of Harris's signal achievements is the establishment of the character's unacknowledged mauvais foi — the monumental, smug self-deception he practices to maintain a lofty distance between himself and those he considers to be ordinary killers, or worse, ordinary killers who lack manners. The chapter then looks at Lecter's screen debut in the film Manhunter (1986). It also considers the influence of the Italian genre of the stylish murder thriller, the giallo, on the films made of Harris's work.
Bryan Turnock
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325895
- eISBN:
- 9781800342460
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325895.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter argues that of all the horror genre's many strands and variations, the original 'slasher' cycle of the 1970s and early 1980s remains the most disreputable and critically vilified, yet ...
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This chapter argues that of all the horror genre's many strands and variations, the original 'slasher' cycle of the 1970s and early 1980s remains the most disreputable and critically vilified, yet its commercial popularity and lasting influence are unquestionable. Whilst rarely making out-and-out slashers themselves, major Hollywood studios cashed in by buying finished films from their independent producers, giving the makers an instant profit and the studios a cheap marketable film virtually guaranteed an audience of teenagers. The chapter examines a film frequently cited as a forerunner of the slasher, one heavily influenced by the Italian giallo genre of crime fiction. In diverging from the established conventions of the giallo, Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971) introduced a number of narrative and aesthetic features found in many of the slasher films that followed. The chapter then considers the influence of the video industry on the evolution of the horror genre (and vice versa), and looks at the issue of censorship as it assesses the British 'video nasties' scare of the early 1980s.Less
This chapter argues that of all the horror genre's many strands and variations, the original 'slasher' cycle of the 1970s and early 1980s remains the most disreputable and critically vilified, yet its commercial popularity and lasting influence are unquestionable. Whilst rarely making out-and-out slashers themselves, major Hollywood studios cashed in by buying finished films from their independent producers, giving the makers an instant profit and the studios a cheap marketable film virtually guaranteed an audience of teenagers. The chapter examines a film frequently cited as a forerunner of the slasher, one heavily influenced by the Italian giallo genre of crime fiction. In diverging from the established conventions of the giallo, Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971) introduced a number of narrative and aesthetic features found in many of the slasher films that followed. The chapter then considers the influence of the video industry on the evolution of the horror genre (and vice versa), and looks at the issue of censorship as it assesses the British 'video nasties' scare of the early 1980s.
Valentina Vitali
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719099656
- eISBN:
- 9781526109774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719099656.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The first part of this chapter looks at how the global changes described in the previous chapter manifested themselves in Italy and offers evidence that there the kind of capital typically associated ...
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The first part of this chapter looks at how the global changes described in the previous chapter manifested themselves in Italy and offers evidence that there the kind of capital typically associated with popular genre films, short-term speculative capital, was a minor and strictly contained player within the country’s economy. Mario Bava’s cult thriller La ragazza che sapeva troppo was produced under these conditions. The second part of the chapter examines Bava’s film in its broader context, where small productions seeking to make a quick profit by monetising well tested sales points such as nudity and suspense where, at best, tolerated always critically ignored, in spite of their experimental and innovative character.Less
The first part of this chapter looks at how the global changes described in the previous chapter manifested themselves in Italy and offers evidence that there the kind of capital typically associated with popular genre films, short-term speculative capital, was a minor and strictly contained player within the country’s economy. Mario Bava’s cult thriller La ragazza che sapeva troppo was produced under these conditions. The second part of the chapter examines Bava’s film in its broader context, where small productions seeking to make a quick profit by monetising well tested sales points such as nudity and suspense where, at best, tolerated always critically ignored, in spite of their experimental and innovative character.
L. Andrew Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037092
- eISBN:
- 9780252094385
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037092.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book explores the extreme violence that pervades Dario Argento's films, and particularly the ways in which they push the limits of visual and auditory experience by offending, confusing, ...
More
This book explores the extreme violence that pervades Dario Argento's films, and particularly the ways in which they push the limits of visual and auditory experience by offending, confusing, sickening, and baffling the viewers. It looks at Argento's approach to his work over more than four decades of filmmaking, and his commitment to innovation that is evident in two closely related genres whose disturbing violence reaches previously unrecorded levels of pain, suffering, and mental anguish: crime thriller and supernatural horror. From his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), to Giallo (2009), Argento's films challenge a viewer's accepted ideas about film spectatorship, meaning, storytelling, and genre. This book also looks at the centrality of collaboration, particularly with family, in Argento's work by analyzing sixteen films that feature him as writer and director. Finally, it discusses how Argento's films function as rhetorical interventions against dominant views on film criticism, interpretation, narrative, and conventions through an examination of interpretive possibilities that connect the films to broader tendencies in film history.Less
This book explores the extreme violence that pervades Dario Argento's films, and particularly the ways in which they push the limits of visual and auditory experience by offending, confusing, sickening, and baffling the viewers. It looks at Argento's approach to his work over more than four decades of filmmaking, and his commitment to innovation that is evident in two closely related genres whose disturbing violence reaches previously unrecorded levels of pain, suffering, and mental anguish: crime thriller and supernatural horror. From his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), to Giallo (2009), Argento's films challenge a viewer's accepted ideas about film spectatorship, meaning, storytelling, and genre. This book also looks at the centrality of collaboration, particularly with family, in Argento's work by analyzing sixteen films that feature him as writer and director. Finally, it discusses how Argento's films function as rhetorical interventions against dominant views on film criticism, interpretation, narrative, and conventions through an examination of interpretive possibilities that connect the films to broader tendencies in film history.
Austin Fisher
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474411721
- eISBN:
- 9781474464727
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411721.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter analyses films connected through their depiction of serial killing in contemporary Italy, which are usually categorised within the giallo filone. These are shown to demonstrate a variety ...
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This chapter analyses films connected through their depiction of serial killing in contemporary Italy, which are usually categorised within the giallo filone. These are shown to demonstrate a variety of ways in which filone cinema was characterised by tensions between cosmopolitanism and parochialism, in turn providing further insights into how particular filoni sought to capitalise on a preoccupation with the recent past. The giallo's broader obsessions with past traumas, fragmented memories and the unravelling of supposed facts are thus placed in the contexts of Italy's contested recent past, illuminating the extent to which wartime memory weighed heavily on the 1970s present.Less
This chapter analyses films connected through their depiction of serial killing in contemporary Italy, which are usually categorised within the giallo filone. These are shown to demonstrate a variety of ways in which filone cinema was characterised by tensions between cosmopolitanism and parochialism, in turn providing further insights into how particular filoni sought to capitalise on a preoccupation with the recent past. The giallo's broader obsessions with past traumas, fragmented memories and the unravelling of supposed facts are thus placed in the contexts of Italy's contested recent past, illuminating the extent to which wartime memory weighed heavily on the 1970s present.
Hilary Chung and Bernadette Luciano
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748694136
- eISBN:
- 9781474412193
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694136.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In recent decades, many Italian filmmakers have turned to the documentary medium in response to the lack of commitment by public and private broadcasters to the production of programmes of cultural ...
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In recent decades, many Italian filmmakers have turned to the documentary medium in response to the lack of commitment by public and private broadcasters to the production of programmes of cultural significance. Unfortunately, the contestable funding available for their production is limited, as is documentary distribution beyond the festival circuit. The emergence and evolution of the web documentary has provided an opportunity for new channels of distribution and increasingly foregrounds the role of the user/viewer in their engagement, interaction, and negotiation with the reality documented. This chapter explores the issues of autonomous navigation, multiplicity, and self-reflexive aesthetics in Sergio Basso's documentary film Giallo a Milano and the associated web documentary Made in Chinatown, in order to understand the new modes of audience engagement provided by this combination of formats. It suggests that embracing the web documentary format triggers the immediate reaction of viewers to sociopolitical issues and creates a new kind of activist reflection, at once discontinuous, fragmentary, and thus open to debate.Less
In recent decades, many Italian filmmakers have turned to the documentary medium in response to the lack of commitment by public and private broadcasters to the production of programmes of cultural significance. Unfortunately, the contestable funding available for their production is limited, as is documentary distribution beyond the festival circuit. The emergence and evolution of the web documentary has provided an opportunity for new channels of distribution and increasingly foregrounds the role of the user/viewer in their engagement, interaction, and negotiation with the reality documented. This chapter explores the issues of autonomous navigation, multiplicity, and self-reflexive aesthetics in Sergio Basso's documentary film Giallo a Milano and the associated web documentary Made in Chinatown, in order to understand the new modes of audience engagement provided by this combination of formats. It suggests that embracing the web documentary format triggers the immediate reaction of viewers to sociopolitical issues and creates a new kind of activist reflection, at once discontinuous, fragmentary, and thus open to debate.
Bruce Isaacs
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- April 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190889951
- eISBN:
- 9780190889999
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190889951.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Pure cinema is read as an aesthetic philosophy and stylistic practice that synthesizes an art cinema sensibility and a mainstream studio aesthetic design Hitchcock observed and further developed in ...
More
Pure cinema is read as an aesthetic philosophy and stylistic practice that synthesizes an art cinema sensibility and a mainstream studio aesthetic design Hitchcock observed and further developed in his American films. Pure cinema thus incorporates both the radical self-awareness of the European auteur cinema and the generic narrative and image form of the American studio system. This synthetic style is then situated within a larger historical narrative that incorporates B-grade cinema traditions and styles (the Italian giallo cinema of Mario Bava and Dario Argento) and Brian De Palma’s self-conscious reconstruction of the B-grade thriller form. The chapter argues that the pure cinema ethos of these films and their filmmakers makes explicit a “visual vernacular” in mise en scène and montage construction that is then traced through Brian De Palma’s formal visual experimentation in Carlito’s Way.Less
Pure cinema is read as an aesthetic philosophy and stylistic practice that synthesizes an art cinema sensibility and a mainstream studio aesthetic design Hitchcock observed and further developed in his American films. Pure cinema thus incorporates both the radical self-awareness of the European auteur cinema and the generic narrative and image form of the American studio system. This synthetic style is then situated within a larger historical narrative that incorporates B-grade cinema traditions and styles (the Italian giallo cinema of Mario Bava and Dario Argento) and Brian De Palma’s self-conscious reconstruction of the B-grade thriller form. The chapter argues that the pure cinema ethos of these films and their filmmakers makes explicit a “visual vernacular” in mise en scène and montage construction that is then traced through Brian De Palma’s formal visual experimentation in Carlito’s Way.